The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three (42 page)

“Kurush, will you be okay here all by yourself?” I said.

“Some time later, I will need you to clean my beak,” said the buriwok.
“So please try to come back in an hour.”

“Will do,” I said. “Sir Kofa, will you kindly remind me?”

“I will, I will,” said Kofa. “So much fuss about this.”

“Where are today’s trophies?” I said, opening the Secret Door of our staff-only entrance.

“The headband is in Juffin’s safe—we won’t be needing it any time soon. As for the cloak, I’ve already broken it in. I’m not parting with it now. So much
better than changing my appearance all the time. Oh, thanks for reminding me. I left it in the office. I’ll go fetch it now. I was planning to take a walk in town later tonight.”

“It’s bad luck to go back,” I said.

“Did you say something?” said Kofa, turning around.

“Never mind me. It’s silly. When I was a kid, many people believed in it. I hope it doesn’t pertain to other Worlds.”

Kofa didn’t listen. By the time I was through, he’d already returned, holding the cloak under his arm. “It would be rude of me to put this on now,” he said.
“You’d have to drill a hole in me with your eyes just to keep me in sight.”

We didn’t disappoint Kurush: we were so hungry the dinner only lasted forty minutes. The service at this late hour had been very prompt so as to get rid of customers as quickly as
possible.

We parted in the doorway. I had to go back to the House by the Bridge to clean the sticky sweet cream from Kurush’s beak, and our Master Eavesdropper had other plans. He was going to hunt
for new secrets and rumors in Echo’s all-night taverns.

Kofa put the old magic cloak over his looxi—he was excited about his new toy. Then he waved goodbye to me and dove into the orange misty light of the street lamps. I couldn’t resist
experiencing the magic again, so I watched Sir Kofa’s silhouette going away. He should have disappeared by now, but I could still see him—no otherworldly powers tried to prevent me from
contemplating Kofa’s back. One of my hearts kicked against my ribs, followed by the other one. They had been lying low for a while, and now—boom!

“Kofa!” I said and ran to him.

“Huh?” he said, turning around. “Forget something?”

“No, Kofa, but I can see you!”

“Really? Well, you must be the most extraordinary creature in the World,” he said, “and no charms work against you.”

“Yes, but earlier today . . . Never mind. Let’s do this: I’ll put on the cloak and walk a few yards up and down the street. If you can’t see me, I’ll give it back
to you and go back to the Headquarters, relieved. What I need now is a peaceful heart. At least one.”

“You think so? No, that’s impossible. But all right, put it on,” said Kofa, handing me the cloak.

I put it on and started walking down the street. I honestly tried to become invisible. I did everything I could. That primarily consisted of saying to myself, Goodness me! I so want to hide from
that horrible Kofa! It was unnecessary, of course. As far as we understood how ordinary magical things worked, the Ukumbian cloak required no effort on the part of its owner to blind the eyes of
others.

“Max, you were right,” said Kofa in a defeated tone. “I can see you, too. The thing doesn’t work. I wish I knew why. It’s great that you noticed it. Can you imagine
what might have happened to me?”

“Let’s go back to Headquarters, I said. “We need to look into your wardrobe. Why would it stop working all of a sudden?”

Kofa took the cloak, examined it, and shrugged, and we both went back to the House by the Bridge.

I didn’t have the slightest idea how we were supposed to “look into” the cloak or where to start, but Kofa didn’t need a kick start in these matters.

“It’s a different cloak, Max,” he said after he had examined the old gray fabric. “It looks almost identical, but it’s a different one. Ours had a torn lining sewn
up with red thread in one place. Just two little stitches. I noticed it when I was studying it in the morning.”

“A different cloak? How can that be?” I said.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Kofa. “When I put it on earlier tonight, it was the original cloak. No one could see me—even our colleagues, including Juffin himself. I took
it off in this office, and no one has been here except you and Kurush. That means that it was you who swapped it. I’ll arrest you, and the case will be closed.”

“Of course it was me,” I said. “Who else would have done such a thing?” I pondered a little and said, “What about the junior staff? Janitors, couriers? They come
and go at will, and we don’t even notice them half the time.”

“I’ll be darned, boy, you’re right!” said Kofa. “While I was waiting for you, I saw a janitor whirling around here. I didn’t pay much attention, of
course.”

“Those guys don’t even need a magic cloak while they’re doing their job,” I said. “They are the most invisible people. Looks like he was the one who stole the
cloak—swapped, rather. I wonder why.”

“I don’t think he was a regular janitor,” said Kofa. “I would have understood if someone had just stolen it—although who would want an old rag like this unless he
knew what it was? But to switch it for another one just like it, this guy not only knew what he had come for, he came prepared.”

“Yikes,” I said. “A conspiracy!”

“Exactly,” said Kofa. “It didn’t occur to me until now how much sense job protocols make. Heck, I’ve written a few thousand job protocols myself during my career,
and this experience doesn’t predispose one to adhering to them too closely. If I hadn’t left the cloak on the back of the chair but locked it in the safe as I was supposed to, our
conspirators would have been given a run for their money!”

“What do we do now?” I said.

“We? We get mad. Angry. That’s what. It’s the best mood for going hunting. And I’m very angry now.”

“Should we wake up Melamori, or do you want me to step on the thief’s trace? Mind you, though, he may not survive the experience.”

“The last thing I’m worried about now is the thief’s health. Now that isn’t in my job description.”

“Excellent. Let’s hop to it then.”

I paced the room, paying attention to the sensation in my feet. Finally I found what I had been looking for: a trace that didn’t belong to any of my colleagues, I was sure of it. And then
I felt as though an impenetrable but transparent cone had dropped on me. I could see the world around me virtually undistorted, but the air underneath the cone was poisoned. I could see very clearly that the evening I had enjoyed at the Three-Horned Moon, Kofa’s and my current
investigation, my sweet plans for the next morning, and everything that had been, was, and would be—all of that was not only pure nonsense but the helpless cramps of a living piece of meat,
the agony of an insect. My body realized that it would die one day and was rehearsing it. Giving it a first reading, so to speak.

I composed myself promptly: I knew the feeling. I was the one and only lucky fellow who had a talent for stepping on traces of dead people, drat it!

“Kofa, this man is already dead. It’s a dead man’s trace,” I said.

“Dead? Wow, that didn’t take long,” said Kofa. “You can step off the trace and recover now. Yes, that was an excellent idea: to send an accomplice to fetch the cloak and
then kill him so no one could step on his trace. The new owner of our trophy is a smart fellow—not so smart as to know that you can follow the trace of a dead man, but then again, it’s
not his fault. Before you showed up in Echo, that had been considered impossible. And praise be the Magicians, we haven’t yet announced your achievements on the first page of the Royal
Voice.”

While Kofa was talking, I rummaged through Juffin’s desk for the ceramic bottle of Elixir of Kaxar. “The only panacea I know of,” I said after taking a hefty gulp of the
liquid, “that can cure the effects of walking down traces of dead people. What would I do without it?”

“It’s unpleasant, isn’t it?” said Kofa. “Poor thing. Everyone else has normal talents.”

“I know. Mother Nature must have been drunk when she made me. But anyway, I might as well just stop whining now. What we need to do is follow that darned trace. If all goes well, where
this trace ends, the trace of the murderer begins, still warm. I’m ready whenever you are.”

“I’m ready. Let’s go,” said Kofa, getting up from the chair. “I can run very fast if necessary, so don’t make allowances for my age or constitution.”

“I wouldn’t think of allowances when it comes to you,” I said, smiling.

I put the bottle of Elixir in the pocket of the Mantle of Death, stepped on the trace of the dead man, and rushed across the hallway of Headquarters out into the street. Kofa was indeed
following right behind me.

That short walk down the streets of Echo at night was one of the nastiest undertakings in my life. More than anything, I wanted to get down on all fours and howl at the thin new moon. But I
managed to contain myself.

“Here,” I said, hesitating at a corner. “Something happened here. Kofa, this fellow went down the Dark Path! I should try to follow him. I’ve never attempted to follow a
dead man’s trace down the Dark Path before. I hope it’s possible, at least in theory.”

“In theory, what you’re doing now is impossible,” said Kofa, “but you’re doing it. In other words, I’m sure you can do it. Impossible things are your
specialty.”

“Are you coming with me?”

“Of course I am. If you end up in hell, rest assured I’ll keep you company.”

“And I’ll bet you’ll find a nice tavern with good cuisine even there.” I tried to force a smile. I had to do it for someone who was about to follow me into hell.

I let the disgusting dead trace lead me and take me away to the devil knows where. For this to happen, I had to throw away the thought that I was still alive, which, under the circumstances,
wasn’t too far-fetched. Finally I felt firm ground under my feet and made a mind-boggling jump to the side—the most effective way to get off the trace you’re standing on. I had to
get off it, simply because I wasn’t made out of steel, even though I wished I were.

I looked around. I was relieved to see Kofa standing just two feet away from me. From the looks of it, we weren’t in hell. We were in a dark and empty room. On the floor I saw a motionless
body. I was happy to see it! I sure hoped that it was the dead man whose trace had almost killed me.

“You must immediately take a gulp from your precious bottle, boy,” said Kofa in the tone of a family doctor. “You look like a person who’s about to faint any second
now.”

“Like heck I am,” I said. “No swooning for me. Your advice, however, is much appreciated.”

“I don’t give bad advice very often.” Kofa made sure I was capable of opening the bottle of Elixir of Kaxar myself, nodded, and approached the dead body. “Well, well,
well, what have we here? Oh, nothing original, praise be the Magicians. Stabbed to death. I think he’s the one we were looking for. He wears the uniform of our junior staff. Ah, he is one of
our junior staff. I don’t remember his name, but I recognize him. A hole in the heavens above him! A janitor who could go down the Dark Path was working in our organization, and no one
bothered to find out what he had been doing before the War for the Code. I want to look the fellow who hired him right in the eye. But it’s all for the better. I’ll run a check on the
rest of them tomorrow. Max, are you ready to look for another trace? The one who killed this lousy creature is the most interesting character in this nasty story. I’m very eager to meet
him.”